The Federalist. Hamilton Alexander
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Lansing were defenders of States’ Rights who opposed the Constitution from the start. The proposed Constitution, they later told Governor George Clinton, would create “a system of consolidated Government that could not in the remotest degree have been in [the] contemplation of the Legislature of this State.” Indeed, “a general Government” such as the one proposed by the Convention in Philadelphia “must unavoidably, in a short time, be productive of the destruction of civil liberty . . . by reason of the extensive territory of the United States, the dispersed situation of its inhabitants, and the insuperable difficulty of controlling the views of a set of men possessed of all the powers of government.”40 Because each State enjoyed only one vote in the Convention and delegates were therefore required to vote as a unit rather than individually, Hamilton found himself a minority of one on most critical issues, with Yates and Lansing controlling the State’s vote on every question. On July 10, Yates and Lansing withdrew from the Convention in disgust, thereby canceling Hamilton’s vote altogether. Hamilton first left the Convention on June 29, returned briefly in mid August, and then resumed his seat in early September until the work of the Convention was completed. Despite these absences and the futility of his vote, Hamilton was present long enough to get his views before the Convention and occasionally join in the debate.
It was during the ratification struggle that Hamilton exerted the greatest influence, however, and not in the Philadelphia Convention. This he accomplished in two ways: as the moving force behind The Federalist and as the leader of the Federalists in the New York ratifying convention. The Federalist, or the “Federalist Papers” as this collection of essays is frequently called, was a collaborative effort, but it was Hamilton who organized, directed, and managed the project.
Only weeks after the Philadelphia Convention had finished its work, Hamilton perceived the need to answer Anti-Federalist attacks on the proposed Constitution that had already appeared in various New York newspapers. The letters of “Cato,” thought by some scholars to be Governor George Clinton, first appeared in the New York Journal on September 27, 1787, the same edition that carried the text of the proposed Constitution. Particularly troublesome were the essays of “Brutus,” which have been attributed by some to Hamilton’s antagonist Robert Yates. They first appeared in early October 1787 in the New York Journal and are among the best of the Anti-Federalist essays, particularly on the structure and powers of the Federal judiciary.41 Hamilton quickly sensed the importance of these essays and the need to explain the features of the new plan of government to the people of New York.
To this end he enlisted the help of James Madison and John Jay, two avid and very prominent supporters of the new Constitution.42 Hamilton could scarcely have done better than to secure the assistance of Madison in this enterprise. Despite the fact that Madison had suffered many disappointments and defeats in the Federal Convention, he was in many ways the “Father of the Constitution,”43 for it was Madison who had worked tirelessly to establish the new Constitution, and his guiding spirit could be seen behind every important development that led up to the Convention, including the Mount Vernon conference in 1784, the Annapolis Convention of 1786, and Virginia’s call for a Philadelphia convention in 1787. No less conspicuous was his leadership in the Continental Congress and in the Federal Convention itself, to say nothing of his role in the ratification struggle in 1787–1788 and in the creation of the Bill of Rights in 1789. And to this day we still rely substantially on Madison’s exhaustive Notes of the Debates in the Federal Convention in order to follow the deliberations of the Convention, determine the original intent of the Framers, and perceive the meaning of most provisions of the Constitution.44 At the age of thirty-six, Madison had already acquired a reputation of brilliance for his mastery of political and constitutional theory and extensive knowledge of great political treatises applicable to the American situation. Hamilton could also rely on Madison to bring a nationalist point of view to the project, for Madison shared Hamilton’s conviction that the young republic needed a much stronger national government if the nation were to remain free and independent.
Though only forty-two years of age, John Jay was the senior member of the triumvirate that produced The Federalist. He brought a wealth of experience to the task. During the American Revolution, Jay had served on the Committee of Correspondence and in both the first and second Continental Congresses. A prominent New York lawyer, he played a leading role in drafting New York’s first constitution in 1777, and that same year he was appointed Chief Justice of the New York Supreme Court. Upon his return to the Continental Congress in 1778, Jay was appointed to a number of diplomatic posts. In 1783, with Benjamin Franklin and John Adams, he negotiated the Treaty of Paris (1783) that officially ended the American Revolution and granted the States independence from Great Britain.
Between late October 1787 and the end of May 1788, Hamilton, Madison, and Jay wrote eighty-five essays favoring adoption of the proposed Constitution. These essays were published in four New York newspapers at irregular intervals well into the summer of 1788, and some were reprinted in Virginia and New England. While controversy over the authorship of certain essays has persisted for decades, recent scholarship confirms that Hamilton wrote fifty-one (Nos. 1, 6–9, 11–13, 15–17, 21–36, 59–61, and 65–85), Madison twenty-nine (Nos. 10, 14, 18–20, 37–58, and 62–63), and Jay, ill during much of this period, only five (Nos. 2–5 and 64). It was common in the eighteenth century, in England as in the American colonies, to publish political essays under a classical pseudonym in order to identify with a Roman statesman—particularly a republican—and conceal one’s identity. The Federalist essays were all signed “Publius,” a reference to Publius Valerius Publicola, the legendary Roman statesman and general of the sixth century B.C. who was renowned for his eloquence, generosity, and dedication to republican principles of government. In Plutarch’s Lives, Publius is said to have been so adored by the people of Rome that they called him “Publicola,” or “people lover.”
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE FEDERALIST
What is the significance of The Federalist, and why have generations of Americans relied so extensively on the essays of Publius in order to understand and appreciate the genius of the American political regime? To answer this question we must look beyond the ratification struggle to the historical development and interpretation of the Constitution. It is impossible to know with certainty, of course, what impact The Federalist had in securing New York’s acceptance of the proposed Constitution, but we do know that it had virtually no effect on the ratification and final adoption of the Constitution. This is so because the Constitution had already been ratified by nine States and was in effect when New York and Virginia finally got around to joining the Union in the summer of 1788. The Federalist, then, is important not because of its immediate impact on the ratification struggle but because of its contributions to our understanding of the constitutional system.
Within the pages of The Federalist is the whole theory of American constitutional government. Here Publius explains the structure upon which the Constitution is built and the rationale of the Framers in constructing a republican form of government based on a separation and division of powers. Why did the Framers favor two legislative chambers (a bicameral system) over a single one (a unicameral system)? What interests were to be represented in these assemblies? Why did they provide for a single instead of a plural executive? Why did they give Federal judges life tenure, during “good behavior,” rather than a limited term of office? Why did they grant certain powers to the central government and reserve others to the States? More fundamentally, why did they fear a concentration of power and prefer limited government?
The answers to these and other important questions about the nature and purpose of the constitutional design, and the meaning of virtually every political principle and clause in the Constitution, will be found in these essays. The Federalist is thus a window through which we may view the proceedings of the Philadelphia Convention and see how the system is supposed to work. It sheds light on the deliberations of the Framers, helping us know and understand and appreciate their reasoning and political theories and the original intentions behind the Constitution they created. It is not too much to say that a reading of The Federalist is indispensable to an understanding of the American Constitution.45
At the same time, we should be mindful that The Federalist